Hardee County Wildlife Refuge, Zolfo Springs, Florida

While we stayed at Peace River Thousand Trails we took a little field trip a few minutes away with a couple other families to explore the Hardee County Wildlife Refuge.

It is located at 650 Animal Way, Zolfo Springs, Florida. Hours are 10am-4pm daily but closed on Mondays and Wed. Admission was $4 teens to adults, $2 age 5-12 and under 5 were free.

It was a small little park but we had a lot of fun learning about all the local animals that lived here. For the very affordable entrance fee you get your moneys worth and you help a worthy cause. My girls made a donation as well. Every animal here was brought here because they had no chance of surviving in the wild again by themselves. Each cage is set up as naturally as possible to replicate their original habitats.

The whole refuge is built with a walkway above the habitats so you can look down into them.

Everyone looking in at the cougars

Cougar relaxing in the shade

Aayla looking at all the cougar info

A soft shell turtle

A raccoon enjoying the lazy day in a hammock

Vulture. there were many of them and not all of them
were residents

A sleepy bear

Discussing some of the animal species here

Searching for the bobcat

The largest alligators I have ever seen! The picture really
does not show his size. He was HUGE!

Deer

Night Heron (he was probably wild)

Tortoise

Our own WILD gang

We went during Pioneer Days and it was a bit crazy to get to but we made it. Some of us had to sneak by the guard while others had to get a police escort as the guard collecting fees for parking for the Pioneer Days thought the wildlife refuge was closed and we were sneaking into the park. I'm sure on a normal day you wouldn't have the issue we had, but we came away with a story to remember forever.

Our first Thousand Trails...Peace River, Florida

As soon as we parked I knew we made the right choice to buy a Thousand Trails (TT) membership. Mind you this is our first time at a TT property but we loved our site. We also love how much money we just saved ourselves...see HERE.

When we first pulled in and were told there were no sewer sites and that they use a lottery system to divvy out the sewer sites we thought it was kind of odd. We weren't impressed. Sites at the TT resorts are first come first served so you drive around and pick the site you want and generally all the sewer sites are always taken here apparently. Others have said this is not the case in other TT resorts.

We drove to the dump station and dumped and then proceeded to find a site. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon and I was so surprised to find a waterfront site! It was a bit mucky from recent rains and the muddy spot had some straw covering it to help with the mudd. We were able to park with most of the muck under the trailer so it didn't bother us at all. I mean how could it bother you with a view like this?

We loved the site so much that we didn't care that we had no sewer (we did have water and electric). We are used to boondocking and stretching out our tanks capacities so it wasn't a big deal for us. Plus Peace River has a honey wagon service. They dump once for free and you can pay for a second dump if you need to or you can agree to switch your hot water heater to propane instead of using their electricity and they will let you dump again for free.

Bonus number one: Staying here with our new Thousand Trails membership for two weeks was free.

Bonus number two: SO many full time families stay here too! The girls were so happy to meet friends again from the Rally and to meet so many more new friends.

There were many afternoons at the pool.

There was puddle jumping fun after the rain.

There was bike riding and exploring with their ride on Jeep.

There was even some remote control fun!

There was painting and playing and dress up.

And don't forget the milk bubbles.

There were campfires and smores.

 Meals with friends...

Even outdoor movie nights.

Cade tried to put in a new splash pad one night but it didn't work out so well.

They ran out of wood in the office so we went out and bought a truck full of wood. As we were loading the wood into the truck we found this beautiful corn snake hiding.

We split some of the wood with some friends but had way more wood then we needed still. The kids all had fun driving around the campground selling wood. They delivered and stacked and were over joyed when they received a tip.

I almost forgot about the dance parties...

And lizard catching.

Raya made me a beautiful birthday cake too as I celebrated my 29th birthday again ;)

So as you can see we had so much fun here that we barely ventured out of the campground at all. The two weeks flew by and having so many friends near by was amazing! We did spend an afternoon at a wildlife preserve which I'll post about next.

So with our first Thousand Trails experience under our belts we are extremely happy with not only the money savings but also with the ability to meet so many other families while travelling.

Do you travel full time? Have you heard of Fulltime Families? Go ahead and check them out! We love having access to this wonderful group of like minded travelling families and meeting up a long the road is so much fun!

Thousand Trails Campground Membership...Show me the savings!

I'll admit it. I never thought I would ever buy a campground membership. For one we prefer to boondock as much as we can. We like more natural settings with fewer people and more space around us. To us spending $15-$20 a night is expensive as there are so many wonderful free options out there (more so on the West coast we found out this winter). The cost in the East is so prohibitive we weren't sure if we would ever be able to return to Florida again.

We have always preferred to camp off the beaten path. To follow a trail to an area where few people are and be surrounded by natural beauty instead of feeling like you are jammed into a parking lot. One of the main reasons solar is so important to us.

Since we sold our house rather quickly and jumped in, head over heels, into this full time life style we had little time to make a winters plan other then...we are heading to Florida! The last time we travelled to Florida the dollar was at par and we didn't notice a huge cost burden of staying in Florida. This year with our dollar being so horrible, and our last minute plans, I started booking sites to have a place to stay. I didn't want to get down here and not find a spot. I booked all our sites from Jan 25th until the end of march before leaving Canada.

At the Rally in February we met many families who belong to Thousand Trails.

We asked them about the pros and cons of joining Thousand Trails. There were way more pros then cons. Financial reasons was the main benefit we heard over and over again. The second highest ranked benefit was it allowed them to be near other fulltime families more often then not. This was a huge factor for us deciding to buy a zone pass. Our kids had so much fun meeting new friends at the rally we knew the friendship factor would be huge for us.

We read some blogs posts against it like this one. Don't let that one discourage you though...continue reading as THIS one may just put you over the edge in favour of buying into the Thousand Trails membership! Either way you have to decide what is important to your family and run with it!

There ARE huge savings to be had. Initially we were concerned if we would get our moneys worth since we are from Canada and can only stay 6 months of the year in the US. We literally paid for our two zone membership and still saved hundreds of dollars by cancelling bookings we already had and moving into the trails system over the next 5 weeks we had left to stay in the States. We will use it again next fall and will renew next Spring and maybe even upgrade as the savings is huge if you have to stay in regular camp grounds.

We bought a two zone pass with Florida Max attached (Florida Max included Bulow RV resort, Gulf View, Harbor Lakes, Lake Magic, Sunshine Travel and Winter Quarters Pasco as six extra resorts).

Our purchase gave us 23 South East Camp grounds plus the 6 max pass bonus and 18 camp grounds in the North West as we knew we were heading out West again in the fall. We also can switch our zone one time so after we return to Canada we will switch it to the South West Zone from the South East Zone so we can stay in California next Nov and December.

source HERE

Here is what we saved: (all dollar amounts in this post are in USD)

We cancelled one week at Fort De Soto when my daughter broke out in a rash, which refunded us $301 and moved to Peace River for two weeks which was FREE as we have 30 days included with our membership.

We saved 20% at our time we had already booked at Terra Ceia RV Park which was an Encore resort. We could now save 20% because we are trails members. So we paid $40.80 a night instead of $50 with fees and taxes of regular rate. Savings of $36.80.

We changed our month of March reservation at Pine Island RV Park which was $1293.15 for the month, We cut it back to one week so we wouldn't incur cancellation fees and still got 20% off as it was an Encore park. They credited back our credit card $953.05.

We spent two weeks at Punta Gorda RV park which was part of our Florida Max pass for FREE.

So savings wise instead of spending $2096 for Feb 20th to March 31st (basically 5 weeks of camping) we spent $604.95 for two zones and Florida Max pass plus$239.10 in other camping fees (negative refunds) for a total $844.05 which included the membership purchase.

Doing this still saved almost $1300 for 5 weeks of camping! Plus we still have it to use in the fall to drive down to California for Nov and Dec (we will do our one time zone switch), plus if we need it for Jan and Feb before having to renew, we have the potential to save $1000's more depending how much we use it. Since we have it I can see us using it for our 14 days in and then 7 out, over and over and over again...until we upgrade :) Now if only they would buy a few more parks in Ontario and BC and we would be all set!

So what do you think? Do you see the savings?